Medicina Gymnastica: or, A treatise concerning the power of exercise, with respect to the animal oeconomy; and the great necessity of it in the cure of several distempersFuller, Francis
Science
Medicina Gymnastica: or, A treatise concerning the power of exercise, with respect to the animal oeconomy; and the great necessity of it in the cure of several distempers
Fuller, Francis
Exercise therapy -- Early works to 1800
Add to all this the Vivacity, the Gayety which does alwayes more or less
result from brisk Motion, whether it is caus’d by the spirits expanding
themselves, or the Fibres dilating themselves to take in a greater
quantity of the Spirits, it is hard to determine, and perhaps of no
great consequence if we could; but that I may represent the Sense we may
conceive of this, I think I have no reason to be asham’d to borrow for
once more an Illustration from that Noble Beast, to which this Exercise
I am treating of is owing; It is a known Case then, that if you take
a Horse of the best Spirit, and of the best Keeping, provided he is
not Vicious, as they call it; if you mount this Horse, and walk him or
keep him to a pretty slow pace, you’ll find him quiet enough, but if
you once put him on to a larger Pace, he can’t contain himself, but
will grow troublesome, and press for a swifter Career, than perhaps his
Rider would desire; which plainly shews, that there is something in the
Animal Oeconomy, which _crescit eundo_, which gathers by Motion, and
which can’t perhaps be made to display it self so well any other way;
for this must not be thought to be wholly owing to high Feeding, but to
the degree of the Motion; for the same Sprightliness or Courage will
appear proportionally in any sort of Motion: And but a slow Motion in
some Cases does not want its good Effects; those who are Judges of the
Art of War, tell us that it is not best for a Body of Men to stand still
and expect the Enemy, but to keep in Motion while they are drawing to
the Battle; and in the time of a Siege, they make it a Rule, to remove
their Men from one Post to another; that their Spirits may be kept
up by their being in a continual Diversion. We are as subject to the
Impressions of Motion, as to those of Sound and Harmony, and both are
able sometimes to inspire a Flash of Courage into the Mind, that is not
to be despis’d; and as one was of Use to drive away the Evil Spirit of
Old, so the other may be of Service, to dispel the Hypochondriack Cloud,
the desponding imaginations of Sick Persons; a Man may be able by this
means to rouze himself, and shake off that _Incubus_ of the Brain, that
lies brooding of Causeless Fears and Doubts, to the great hindrance of
all his Endeavours after Health; it is no small matter for a Person to
hope and believe that he shall do well, it is some Advance towards a Cure
to have so much Courage, Ἤν φόβος καὶ δυθυμὶη, &c. _Si Metus & Tristitia
multo tempopore perseverent, Melancholicum hoc ipsum_; As _Hippocrates_
observes in one of his _Aphorisms_ of his _fifth Section_, Fear and
Sadness are sufficient to create a Distemper, and therefore may be very
well thought to obstruct greatly the Cure of one; those Passions cause
the Motion of the Heart, and the Beat of the _Artery_ to be weaker and
consequently must proportionably lessen insensible Perspiration, which
depends so much upon the Vigour of that Motion: We see a more than usual
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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